What help us to know ourselves, what things are not helping factors, and how we can analyse ourselves from the outgoing faculties and intellect is a practical subject. This is truly called spirituality.

What the Master does for the disciple

Help and protection is extended by the Master to His followers. Just like a mother who looks after the comfort of her child. She cleanses its body which has become besmeared by filth. She feeds the child and sees that it should not suffer from cold or heat. She sacrifices her own comfort for the child, to bring it up. With all this, the child does not know what the mother is doing for it. Even when the mother is carrying the child, she is careful not to do anything to make it sick. Similarly, those whom the Master takes under His care, are looked after like a child. The follower does not dream of what the Master is doing for him, but the Master does not show anything. He looks after His follower in every way, for his comfort, feeding and development. He also looks after the outward comforts of His children; all facilities are given. Even the effects of the reactions of the past, from the gallows to an ordinary pin prick, so much concession is given. So to have a Living Master is a great blessing. As a mother sacrifices all comfort for the sake of her child, even so does the Master sacrifice everything for the sake of His children. Even when the child grows up and becomes naughty, the mother cares for the child, that it should not be hungry. So whoever comes to the Master, has got a great blessing. Even if the disciple goes wrong, the Master does not cease to look after him, just like the prodigal son whom the father never forgot. The disciple might leave the Master but the Master never leaves him. He fills His followers with His own thought, with His own Life. So when the child remembers Him, well, it is the Master who first loves us, remembers us. When we remember Him, He remembers us, with all His heart and soul. He is always looking after the good of His followers. He is not the body. He is the Word personified, the Word made flesh. He is everywhere. We are simply to invert inside and see what He does for us. Even if we cannot invert, He still looks after us.

The worldly people are with us only so far as their purpose is served. When their purpose is served, they leave us. Sometimes people leave us when we are in distress, ill, sick, or have become penniless, but the Master does not leave us. Those who are very devoted to their parents will look after their welfare but at the time of death, they cannot help them. They pray that God should take care of their soul, that's all. But the Master does not leave us. Even on that day He comes along with you . So you should go to the feet of such a Master, who is conversant with here and the hereafter, who can help you here and in the Beyond.

I was just referring to a man, a villager here. He is a cultivator, a farmer. He was growing some melons and they had become ripe. He was about to harvest the melons and make them ready for the marked, but it was getting dark and he decided to leave it until the morrow. He said to himself, "This is all the Master's, I need not worry." That night, some thieves came, five or six of them. They cut the fruit at one place but could not take it away. What happened? Five or six forms came up with sticks in hand and beat them one by one, and they all fled away. Next day, the owner of the fields saw that the melons were lying there ready to be taken away, and wondered why. It so happened that in four or five days, those same thieves, who had been laid up with fever, came to the farmer and wanted to know why they had done something wrong. "All right," they said, "please excuse us, we are the thieves." So the farmer said, "I am not to excuse, it is up to my Master."

The Master looks after the comfort of His followers in every way, outward and inward. A true follower will see the Radiant Form of the Master, who is to guide you in the higher planes. If anything comes up for reckoning He says, "All right, I will look after it." The follower is to wind up all his actions from the date that he comes to the feet of the Master. So to have a Living Master is a great blessing.

He who has got a Master is better off than those who have no Master. Iron, even though it becomes rusty, will not be eaten up by ants, whereas ordinary wood will. So suchlike people who have come to the Master won't go to hell. They cannot go there. They might come back as a man, because the seed sown in them cannot flourish except in the body of a man, but they are not to descend lower than a man. But if one does it in life, why should he return at all? So to have a Living Master is a great blessing. He guides you both here and in the hereafter. He winds up the reactions of past karmas, and for that purpose, you must go to a Master. The Masters are very frank. They say, "What is the use of going to a Master, if a man has to suffer all of the reactions of the past!" If a man goes to the feet of a lion and the jackals come and howl around him, would he not be all right? So today's subject is, "The Master looks after His followers, both here and hereafter." He does not leave until He has taken the soul to the feet of the Sat Purusha. The follower may leave, but He will never leave. In some letters written to my Master, it was said, "Now we want to leave you." The Master said, "You may leave me, but I cannot leave you." I have also had one or two letters like that. I reply, "My companionship will continue; you may leave."

So you see how great a blessing it is to come to the feet of a Living Master, the God in Him of course. How fortunate you are. Through your meditations you develop your love for Him, which is already within you, of course with His Grace. It is first He who loves us, our love is just reciprocal. Then you are not to return to the world. Why? What for? If you learn to transcend into the Beyond, thereafter He looks after you until He takes you to the feet of the Sat Purusha. These things are even given in books. Maulana Rumi said, "Sit at the feet of such a Master who knows here and hereafter. Who can extend you help and protection in the physical world and even when you go into the Beyond. All others will leave you, but He won't leave you".

What behoves us now? Just keep His commandments. If you love Him, well, He loves you. Your love is reciprocal. He will love you more if you keep His commandments. He wants you to be pure. Just wind up your affairs by undergoing the Pralabdh Karma. He won't touch that, otherwise a man would die all at once at the time of Initiation. Spiritual deeds draw the line within which you should work and will make you a Conscious Co-worker of the Divine Plan. When you see that He is the Doer, then who will bear the fruit of any reactions of the past? So you will find that to have a Living Master is a great blessing, both here and hereafter. We are only to abide by what He says. When you sit in a boat, well sit in it, don't plunge outside. You will be taken to the other side of the river. Even if you fall out, every effort is made to prevent you from drowning. Those who do not abide by what He says, even then He does not leave them. Once He has sown the seed of Naam, that must sprout forth.

So every day you are getting something new. It is not really new, it is already there. You have to just thank God for the blessing you are having. Everybody will leave you, but at the last moment He will say, "Come on please, I am with you." Even now if you leave the body, He is with you.